December 2011 Archives

This article from the New York Times discusses the volume in credit default, the safety of European sovereign bonds, and the changes in net contracts in Italy, Spain, and France.

the reporter used to computer-assisted reporting to help visualize the trends in these different categories. The use of charts made the the statistics much more powerful, and easier to understand.

The necessary computer skills this reporter needed to write this article are experience with a spreadsheet and knowledge of how to create a chart. They also needed to know what scale to put the charts on to maximize the differences in the numbers.

Five people are dead after a helicopter crashed into the River Mountains during a tour of the Las Vegas Strip and the Hoover Dam on Wednesday.

The pilot has been identified as Landon Nield, 31. He was a pilot for Sundance Helicopters for several years, the Washington Post reported.

Numerous witnesses heard the crash and reported seeing smoke in the mountains just off of the edge of Lake Mead.

The crash site is in a remote area about 30 miles away for the Vegas Strip and it is not accessible by road, which delayed the initial rescue attempts and caused officials to delay recovery and investigation until Thursday morning, CTV reported.

The cause of the crash is still unknown.

This is not the first accident Sundance Helicopters has experienced. In 2003, a helicopter slammed into a wall while flying through the Descent Canyon.

The majority of University of Minnesota students are graduating in four years, an accomplishment that seemed unlikely for the university which has been experiencing low graduation rates.

New data reveals that the university's graduation rate has risen. Now, 54 percent of students who started studying at the university in 2007 earned their degrees in 2011, the Minnesota Daily reported.

The university has implemented many strategies for increasing its graduation rate including: offering free credits after the first 13, having a Welcome Week to gather freshmen together to get organized for college, and encouraging students to map out their majors and minors on the "Graduation Planner," the Star Tribune reported.

Six years ago, leaders of the university set a goal 60 percent of students graduating in four years by 2012. As of now, they are unlikely to hit this mark, but over 90 percent of students continue studying at the university after their first year.

A police officer and another person are dead after a shooting on the Virginia Tech campus Thursday.

According to a university spokesman, the shooting took place around noon. A police officer performed a routine traffic stop in a parking lot, and was shot and killed. The suspect fled on foot toward a different parking lot, where the second victim was found dead.

The suspect is described as a white male wearing a gray sweatsuit and a gray hat, the Associated Press reported.

Schools in Montgomery County, where the university is located, have all been closed, the New York Times reported.

University officials are stationed all over the campus to help prevent this shooting from turning into the massacre that happened at Virginia Tech in 2007, when 33 people were killed by one shooter.